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File:The patient's skin is burned in a pattern corresponding to the dark portions of a kimono - NARA - 519686.jpg
A hibakusha of Hiroshima with symptomatic nuclear burns; the pattern on her skin is from the kimono she was wearing at the moment of the flash.

{{#invoke:Lang|lang}} ({{#invoke:IPA|main}} or {{#invoke:IPA|main}}; Template:Langx or {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}; Template:Lit. or Template:Gloss) is a word of Japanese origin generally designating the people affected by the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the United States at the end of World War II.

DefinitionEdit

The word {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} is Japanese, originally written in kanji. While the term {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} ({{#invoke:Lang|lang}} {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} Template:Gloss + {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} Template:Gloss + {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} Template:Gloss) has been used before in Japanese to designate any victim of bombs, its worldwide democratization led to a definition concerning the survivors of the atomic bombs dropped in Japan by the United States Army Air Forces on 6 and 9 August 1945.

Anti-nuclear movements and associations, among others of {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}, spread the term to designate any direct victim of nuclear disaster, including the ones of the nuclear plant in Fukushima.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> They, therefore, prefer the writing {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (replacing {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} Template:Gloss with the homophonous {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} Template:Gloss) or Template:Gloss.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> This definition tends to be adopted since 2011.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

The legal status of {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} is allocated to certain people, mainly by the Japanese government.

Official recognitionEdit

The Atomic Bomb Survivors Relief Law defines {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} as people who fall into one or more of the following categories: within a few kilometers of the hypocenters of the bombs; within Template:Convert of the hypocenters within two weeks of the bombings; exposed to radiation from fallout; or not yet born but carried by pregnant women in any of the three previously mentioned categories.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The Japanese government has recognized about 650,000 people as {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}. Template:As of, 106,825 were still alive, mostly in Japan,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> and in 2024 are expected to surpass the number of surviving US World War veterans.<ref>McEvoy, Olan (June 1, 2023). "Annual projected number of living WWII United States military veterans from 2021 until 2036," Statista, https://www.statista.com/statistics/1333701/us-military-ww2-veterans-living-estimate/</ref> The government of Japan recognizes about 1% of these as having illnesses caused by radiation.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} are entitled to government support. They receive a certain amount of allowance per month, and the ones certified as suffering from bomb-related diseases receive a special medical allowance.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

The memorials in Hiroshima and Nagasaki contain lists of the names of the {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} who are known to have died since the bombings. Updated annually on the anniversaries of the bombings, Template:As of, the memorials record the names of more than 540,000 {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}; 344,306 in Hiroshima<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> and 198,785 in Nagasaki.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Template:Wide image

File:A-Bomb Dome.jpg
Citizens of Hiroshima walk by the Hiroshima Peace Memorial, the closest building to Ground Zero not to have collapsed from "Little Boy".
File:Sumiteru Taniguchi back.jpg
A photograph of Sumiteru Taniguchi's back injuries taken in January 1946 by a U.S. Marine photographer

In 1957, the Japanese Parliament passed a law providing free medical care for {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}. During the 1970s, non-Japanese {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} who suffered from those atomic attacks began to demand the right to free medical care and the right to stay in Japan for that purpose. In 1978, the Japanese Supreme Court ruled that such persons were entitled to free medical care while staying in Japan.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>My Life: Interview with former Hiroshima Mayor Takashi Hiraoka, Part 10, Chugoku Shimbun</ref>

Korean survivorsEdit

During the war, Korea had been under Japanese imperial rule and many Koreans were living in Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the time of the atomic bombings. More than 2 million Koreans migrated to Japan during the colonial period as a result of financial hardship on the peninsula. Others were either mobilized as laborers or soldiers during World War II. Those who remained in postwar Japan after the atomic bombings were called Zainichi Korean hibakusha.<ref>Takahashi, Yuko. 2024. Korean Nuclear Diaspora : Redress Movements of Korean Atomic-Bomb Victims in Japan. Blue Ridge Summit: Lexington Books/Fortress Academic. Page xv.</ref> According to recent estimates, about 20,000 Koreans were killed in Hiroshima and about 2,000 died in Nagasaki. It is estimated that one in seven of the Hiroshima victims was of Korean ancestry.<ref name="ModernJapan"> Template:Cite book</ref> The exact number of Korean victims remains unknown; however, the amount of those exposed to radiation increased as laborers were mobilized to provide response and relief to areas that were directly affected.<ref>Takahashi, Yuko. 2024. Korean Nuclear Diaspora : Redress Movements of Korean Atomic-Bomb Victims in Japan. Blue Ridge Summit: Lexington Books/Fortress Academic. Page 12.</ref>

For many years, Koreans had a difficult time fighting for recognition as atomic bomb victims and were denied health benefits. Some reported discriminatory treatment in applying for allowances and survivor certificates. Others were unable to access information on government relief and healthcare due to literacy barriers. Some of these issues have been addressed in recent years through lawsuits.<ref>Hibakusha: A Korean's fight to end discrimination toward foreign A-bomb victims Template:Webarchive, Mainichi Daily News. May 9, 2008.</ref>

Efforts to commemorate Korean victims have been contentious within the context of both North-South Korean divisions, as well as Korean-Japanese relations. The emergence of Cold War geopolitical tensions complicated Zainichi Korean hibakusha efforts to advocate for redress and recognition for Korean victims as the Zainichi community grappled with divisions on their home peninsula.<ref>Takahashi, Yuko. 2024. Korean Nuclear Diaspora : Redress Movements of Korean Atomic-Bomb Victims in Japan. Blue Ridge Summit: Lexington Books/Fortress Academic. Page xxxiii.</ref>

Several Zainichi Korean hibakusha memorials exist in Japan today, including the Chosen-jin Hibakusha Memorial in Nagasaki Peace Park, as well as the Hiroshima Kankoku-jin Hibakusha Cenotaph.<ref>Takahashi, Yuko. 2024. Korean Nuclear Diaspora : Redress Movements of Korean Atomic-Bomb Victims in Japan. Blue Ridge Summit: Lexington Books/Fortress Academic. Page 18.</ref> The cenotaph was heavily disputed in terms of its original placement outside of the Peace Memorial Park, as well as its engravings. At the end of the 1990s, joint talks between Hiroshima City mayor Yamada Setsuo, as well as members of both Mindan and Soren — the two, prominent Zainichi Korean organizations in Japan — helped facilitate the transfer of the cenotaph within the park, which was completed in 1999.<ref>Takahashi, Yuko. 2024. Korean Nuclear Diaspora : Redress Movements of Korean Atomic-Bomb Victims in Japan. Blue Ridge Summit: Lexington Books/Fortress Academic. Page 132.</ref>

Japanese-American survivorsEdit

File:Standing boy of Nagasaki 1945.jpg
The Boy Standing by the Crematory, a historic photograph taken in Nagasaki, Japan, in September 1945, shortly after the atomic bombing of that city on August 9, 1945. The photograph is of a boy of about 10 years old with his dead baby brother strapped to his back, waiting for his turn at the crematorium.

It was a common practice before the war for American Issei, or first-generation immigrants, to send their children on extended trips to Japan to study or visit relatives. More Japanese immigrated to the U.S. from Hiroshima than any other prefecture, and Nagasaki also sent many immigrants to Hawai'i and the mainland. There was, therefore, a sizable population of American-born Nisei and Kibei living in their parents' hometowns of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the time of the atomic bombings. The actual number of Japanese Americans affected by the bombings is unknown – although estimates put approximately 11,000 in Hiroshima city alone – but some 3,000 of them are known to have survived and returned to the U.S. after the war.<ref name=Wake>Wake, Naoko. "Japanese American Hibakusha", Densho Encyclopedia. Retrieved Aug 5, 2014.</ref>

A second group of {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} counted among Japanese American survivors are those who came to the U.S. in a later wave of Japanese immigration during the 1950s and 1960s. Most in this group were born in Japan and migrated to the U.S. in search of educational and work opportunities that were scarce in post-war Japan. Many were war brides, or Japanese women who had married American men related to the U.S. military's occupation of Japan.<ref name=Wake/>

As of 2014, there are about 1,000 recorded Japanese American {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} living in the United States. They receive monetary support from the Japanese government and biannual medical checkups with Hiroshima and Nagasaki doctors familiar with the particular concerns of atomic bomb survivors. The U.S. government provides no support to Japanese American {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}.<ref name=Wake/>

Other foreign survivorsEdit

While one British Commonwealth citizen<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> and seven Dutch POWs (two names known)<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> died in the Nagasaki bombing, at least two POWs reportedly died postwar from cancer thought to have been caused by the atomic bomb.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>It Gave Him Life – It Took It, Too Template:Webarchive United States Merchant Marine.org website]</ref> One American POW, the Navajo Joe Kieyoomia, was in Nagasaki at the time of the bombing but survived, reportedly having been shielded from the effects of the bomb by the concrete walls of his cell.<ref>"How Effective Was Navajo Code? One Former Captive Knows", News from Indian Country, August 1997.</ref>

Double survivorsEdit

People who suffered the effects of both bombings are known as {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} in Japan. These people were in Hiroshima on 6 August 1945, and within two days managed to reach Nagasaki.

A documentary called Twice Bombed, Twice Survived: The Doubly Atomic Bombed of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was produced in 2006. The producers found 165 people who were victims of both bombings, and the production was screened at the United Nations.<ref name="Twice">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

On 24 March 2009, the Japanese government officially recognized Tsutomu Yamaguchi (1916–2010) as a double {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}. Yamaguchi was confirmed to be Template:Convert from ground zero in Hiroshima on a business trip when the bomb was detonated. He was seriously burnt on his left side and spent the night in Hiroshima. He got back to his home city of Nagasaki on 8 August, a day before the bomb in Nagasaki was dropped, and he was exposed to residual radiation while searching for his relatives. He was the first officially recognized survivor of both bombings.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Yamaguchi died at the age of 93 on 4 January 2010 of stomach cancer.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

DiscriminationEdit

File:Hibakusha.jpg
lang}} of Nagasaki, tells young people about his experience and shows pictures. United Nations's International Atomic Energy Agency building in Vienna, during the NPT PrepCom 2007.

{{#invoke:Lang|lang}} and their children were (and still are) victims of severe discrimination when it comes to prospects of marriage or work<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> due to public ignorance about the consequences of radiation sickness, with much of the public believing it to be hereditary or even contagious.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> This is despite the fact that no statistically demonstrable increase of birth defects or congenital malformations was found among the later conceived children born to survivors of the nuclear weapons used at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or found in the later conceived children of cancer survivors who had previously received radiotherapy.<ref>The Children of Atomic Bomb Survivors: A Genetic Study. 1992. No differences were found (in frequencies of birth defects, stillbirths, etc), thus allaying the immediate public concern that atomic radiation might spawn an epidemic of malformed children.</ref><ref>World Health Organization report. page 23 & 24 internal]</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> The surviving women of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, who could conceive, and were exposed to substantial amounts of radiation, went on and had children with no higher incidence of abnormalities or birth defects than the rate observed in the Japanese population.<ref>http://www.rerf.jp/radefx/genetics_e/birthdef.html (RERF)Radiation Effects Research Foundation. Formerly known as the (ABCC)Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission.</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Studs Terkel's book The Good War includes a conversation with two {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}. The postscript observes:

<templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" />

There is considerable discrimination in Japan against the hibakusha. It is frequently extended toward their children as well: socially as well as economically. "Not only hibakusha but their children, are refused employment," says Mr. Kito. "There are many among them who do not want it known that they are hibakusha."{{#if:Studs Terkel (1984), The Good War.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>|{{#if:|}}

}}

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The Template:Nihongo is a group formed by {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} in 1956 with the goals of pressuring the Japanese government to improve support of the victims and lobbying governments for the abolition of nuclear weapons.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Some estimates are that 140,000 people in Hiroshima (38.9% of the population) and 70,000 people in Nagasaki (28.0% of the population) died in 1945, but how many died immediately as a result of exposure to the blast, heat, or due to radiation, is unknown. One Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission (ABCC) report discusses 6,882 people examined in Hiroshima, and 6,621 people examined in Nagasaki, who were largely within 2000 meters from the hypocenter, who suffered injuries from the blast and heat but died from complications frequently compounded by acute radiation syndrome (ARS), all within about 20–30 days.<ref>Latest Knowledge on Radiological Effects: Radiation Health Effects of Atomic Bomb Explosions and Nuclear Power Plant Accidents</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

In the rare cases of survival for individuals who were in utero at the time of the bombing and yet who still were close enough to be exposed to less than or equal to 0.57 Gy, no difference in their cognitive abilities was found, suggesting a threshold dose for pregnancies below which there is no danger. In 50 or so children who survived the gestational process and were exposed to more than this dose, putting them within about 1000 meters from the hypocenter, microcephaly was observed; this is the only elevated birth defect issue observed in the {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}, occurring in approximately 50 in-utero individuals who were situated less than 1000 meters from the bombings.<ref name="books.google.ie">Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

In a manner dependent on their distance from the hypocenter, in the 1987 Life Span Study, conducted by the Radiation Effects Research Foundation, a statistical excess of 507 cancers, of undefined lethality, were observed in 79,972 {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} who had still been living between 1958–1987 and who took part in the study.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

An epidemiology study by the RERF estimates that from 1950 to 2000, 46% of leukemia deaths and 11% of solid cancers, of unspecified lethality, could be due to radiation from the bombs, with the statistical excess being estimated at 200 leukemia deaths and 1,700 solid cancers of undeclared lethality.<ref name="rerf-cancers">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

HealthEdit

Notable {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}Edit

File:Isao Harimoto 1959 Scan10007.jpg
Isao Harimoto, ethnic Korean former Nippon Professional Baseball player and holder of the record for most hits in the Japanese professional leagues. Inducted into the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame in 1990.
File:Setsuko Thurlow on 27 October 2017.jpg
Setsuko Thurlow, Japanese-Canadian anti-nuclear peace activist and ambassador and keynote speaker for the reception of the Nobel Peace Prize of ICAN, 27 October 2017

HiroshimaEdit

  • Hiroshima Maidens – 25 young women who had surgery in the US after the war
  • Hubert Schiffer – Jesuit priest at Hiroshima
  • Ikuo Hirayama – {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} of Hiroshima at 15 years old, painter
  • Isao Harimoto – {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} of Hiroshima at 5 years old, ethnic Korean baseball professional player
  • Issey Miyake – {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} of Hiroshima at 7 years old, clothing designer
  • Julia Canny – Irish nun who survived Hiroshima and aided survivors
  • Keiji Nakazawa – {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} of Hiroshima at 6 years old, author of Barefoot Gen and other anti-war manga.
  • Kiyoshi Tanimoto – {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} at 36 years old, Methodist minister, anti-nuclear activist, helped Hiroshima Maidens and {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} to gain social rights. Peace prize named after him
  • Koko Kondo – {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} of Hiroshima at 1 year old, notable peace activist and daughter of Reverend Kiyoshi Tanimoto
  • Masaru Kawasaki – {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} of Hiroshima at 19 years old, composer of the dirge performed at every Hiroshima Peace Memorial Ceremony since 1975
  • Michihiko Hachiya – {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} of Hiroshima at 42 years old, physician specialized in {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}, writer of Hiroshima Diary<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref>

File:Tamiki Hara.jpg
Tamiki Hara, poet, writer and literature professor
  • Tamiki Hara – {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} of Hiroshima at 39 years old, poet, writer, and university professor
  • Tomotaka Tasaka – {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} of Hiroshima at 43 years old, film director and scriptwriter
  • Yoko Ota – {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} of Hiroshima at 38 years old, writer
  • Yoshito Matsushige – {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} of Hiroshima at 32 years old, has taken the only five pictures known the day of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima
  • Shigeru Nakamura – {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} of Hiroshima at 34 years old, supercentenarian, former oldest living Japanese man (11 January 1911 – 15 November 2022).<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref>

NagasakiEdit

Hiroshima and NagasakiEdit

  • Tsutomu Yamaguchi – the first person officially recognized to have survived both the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings.

Artistic representations and documentariesEdit

LiteratureEdit

Template:Further

{{#invoke:Lang|lang}} literatureEdit

Non-{{#invoke:Lang|lang}} literatureEdit

|CitationClass=web }}</ref> Kamila Shamsie, 2009

  • Nagasaki: Life After Nuclear War,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref> Susan Southard, 2015

Manga and animeEdit

FilmsEdit

MusicEdit

|CitationClass=web }}</ref>

  • Masao Ohki, Symphony no 5 "Hiroshima", 1953
  • Toshio Hosokawa, Voiceless Voice in Hiroshima, 1989–2001<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Fine art paintingEdit

Performing artsEdit

  • {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} characters are featured in several Japanese plays including The Elephant by Minoru Betsuyaku

DocumentariesEdit

|CitationClass=web }}</ref> Journeyman Pictures, 2008

See alsoEdit

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ReferencesEdit

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Further readingEdit

External linksEdit

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